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Robert J. Barro

Awards and Honors:

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Econometric Society (elected fellow)

Biography:

Robert J. Barro, a former senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Barro's expertise is in the areas of macroeconomics, economic growth, and monetary theory. Current research focuses on two very different topics: the interplay between religion and political economy and the impact of rare disasters on asset markets and macroeconomic activity.

He has written extensively on macroeconomics and economic growth. Noteworthy research includes empirical determinants of economic growth, economic effects of public debt and budget deficits, and the formation of monetary policy.

Recent books include Macroeconomics: A Modern Approach, Economic Growth (2nd edition McGraw Hill, 2008) written with Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Nothing Is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium, Determinants of Economic Growth (2002), and Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society (1996).

Barro is coeditor of Harvard’s Quarterly Journal of Economics and was recently president of the Western Economic Association and vice president of the American Economic Association.

He was a viewpoint columnist for Business Week from 1998 to 2006 and a contributing editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 1998.

Before his appointments at Harvard University and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Barro was a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and at the University of Rochester.

Barro received a PhD in economics from Harvard University and a BS in physics from Caltech.

Dear Lawrence Summers and Jason Furman, We read with interest your Dear Colleague letter in The Washington Post in response to ours in the Wall Street Journal. You ask if we have considered several points you make. The answer is yes — we have considered each before coming to our conclusion.

The level of economic commentary during the presidential campaign has not been high. Democrats have accused Mitt Romney of the crime of shipping jobs abroad while at Bain Capital, and Mr. Romney has responded by denying the charge.

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